35 Years in the Big Sky Country

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Tag Archives: Lake McDonald Boats

The second week of January 2018 was one of both good and bad news for historic preservation in the Big Sky Country. First came the good news out of the State Historic Preservation Office in Helena about the National Register of Historic Places listing of two more Lake McDonald boats at Glacier National Park. The DeSmet, shown above, has long been my favorite. It has navigated the calm waves of the lake since 1930. Designed and built by John Swanson of Kalispell, the boat became an important way that the increasing numbers of automobile visitors to Glacier could experience the lake and it helped make the Lake McDonald Lodge a stronger resort experience. Quite an amazing piece of craftsmanship from Swanson, and so few of his creations remain today. And as the photo above documents, the boat visually complements the setting–a reminder that the human presence is so small and insignificant compared to the majesty of the mountains.

The bad news also came from Northwest Montana: the demolition of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Lockridge Medical Clinic in Whitefish. Now there is no way in Montana to have a direct experience with a work from America’s best known and greatest architect. I have spoken about the preservation needs of this architectural jewel earlier in this blog–and like the loss of the Mercantile Building in Missoula last year, development pressures lacked the patience, and the vision, to see anything but a possible empty lot, where a modern “historic” take–the fake past in other words–could stand.

Such an attitude in Whitefish is doubly disappointing because in the 35 years I have visited this great mountain railroad town, the real history continues to disappear in favor of a fake, quasi-western feel past, as above. Call this progress if you will but in reality it is just another step into the abyss where Whitefish will longer be distinctive but just a place, like hundreds of others, trying to create a sense of identity and capture again what they once had.